ChoraChori is providing skills training to a group of highly vulnerable girls from Jhapa District in southeast Nepal.

A Nepali Times article of July 2016 described how Nepal at that time had the seventh highest suicide rate in the world and the third highest rate of girl suicide. And the District with the highest suicide rate was Jhapa in the southeast, with an annual rate of 31 per 100,000 compared to the national average of 24.9 per 100,000.

A number of factors contribute to these dreadful figures including inward migration, natural disasters (floods), gender discrimination, grinding poverty and lack of employment prospects. One of Jhapa District’s major sources of employment is the tea plantations and these pay the women workers an absolute pittance for back-breaking labour. Another key factor is alcohol and drug abuse that, according to another Nepali Times article from June this year, makes Jhapa also a hotspot for sexual abuse and child rape. Alongside assisting child rape victims and supporting prosecution of offenders, ChoraChori will also be extending assistance to vulnerable girls in Jhapa and other Districts.

This week we admitted seven Jhapa girls (school drop-outs) to our refuge/training centre in Kathmandu. British (volunteer) consultant David Mintz is training them in candle-making skills appropriate to the Western market. The girls will also receive six months’ worth of tailoring training, life and language skills before they return to Jhapa each with their own sewing machine. It’s a small initial step but a significant one.

On Monday the girls were very excited to meet their first-ever foreigners, Beverley and Philip Holmes, the Founders of ChoraChori. And then, like London buses, David arrived on the scene two days later….

Alongside our child rescue and rehabilitation work in Nepal, ChoraChori also provides material and educational support to some very poor girls within the local community. One such girl, Rina, has responded by achieving a remarkable result in the latest Secondary Education Examination (SEE).

In late 2014 ChoraChori-Nepal’s Founder and Operational Director, Shailaja CM, found these two sisters wandering destitute in the Godawari hills to the southeast of Kathmandu valley. Their alcoholic father was living in a shack (see feature image) and their stepmother had thrown them out. At Shailaja’s request we took the two girls into our care and paid for their education at the nearby Kitini School, one of the best state schools in Nepal. The cost of this was subsequently picked up by our friends at The Soroptimist International on Devon – Taranaki Club in New Zealand.

The elder of the two sisters, Rina (name changed), has just achieved a remarkable success in the Secondary Education Examination (SEE), the Grade 10 examination that up until recently was known as the School Leaving Certificate (SLC). Her “A” grade means that she has scored between 80% and 90% – which is interpreted as “Excellent” – putting Rina within the top third of students who sat the examination. This should be interpreted against the sad backdrop of the number of children who drop out of school before Grade 10 due to extreme poverty or poor schooling opportunities while others are not permitted to write the examination if they are considered likely to fail.

Rina is now moving on to Grade 11 – “Plus Two” – at Kitini College where she has chosen management as her academic stream for the next two years. While staying at the ChoraChori refuge she will supplement her academic education with training in the arts and crafts.

ChoraChori has successfully supported the prosecution of a child rapist in Nepal – the first of many.

A Nepali Times article from last month highlighted how in Nepal cases of reported rape have quadrupled in the last ten years. Over half of the victims are children and one in five are under the age of ten. Sadly, due to a combination of factors, the prosecution rate has been very low and that is something we intend to address. And we have had our first success in this regard.

Thirteen year old Karuna (name changed) lived with her family in a rented room in a village in east Nepal. Suresh Kumar, aged 40, lived next door. Karuna often called him “uncle” and he was trusted by the family. One afternoon earlier this year Kumar invited Karuna over to his place where he raped her. He threatened to kill Karuna if she told anyone about it but she was brave enough to tell her mother who filed a complaint with the police and Kumar was arrested.

After the incident, Karuna became frightened of reprisals from Kumar’s family and, together with having to contend with the stigma associated with rape, she felt the need to move out for a while and until Kumar was prosecuted. We admitted Karuna to our psychosocial support programme at our children trauma management centre which is within our Kathmandu refuge. There she was also able to take part in craft and income generation activities (see title picture).

Our legal team became involved too, verifying statements and supporting Karuna through the daunting prospect of court hearings and ensuring that the government prosecutor was well prepared. Last week Kumar was sentenced to ten years in prison and ordered to pay 50,000 Nepalese rupees (£350) to the family. This might seem like a paltry sum however ten years in a Nepali prison is a very unpleasant prospect and a step in the right direction. We will call for much tougher sentencing in future.